Teachers/Professors

Man screaming into phone: We've been having fun and fun and fun. The thing we ain't having is fucking sex!

–Greenpoint

Overheard by: LisaLisa

Psych prof: Now, I don't know anyone who's ever died from not having sex. Maybe they tried to get some and failed in some horrible way that led to their demise, but I don't know anyone who's actually died from not having sex. (later) If you go on a starvation diet, which I don't recommend, be sure to drink water because, uh, you will die.

–Barnard College

Overheard by: High Aspirations

Guy to friend: He's fucking 57 years old and he's still a fucking virgin.

–W Broadway & Thomas

Gay man to straight female friend: I haven't had sex in almost two years… I need to get a dog.

–G Train

Overheard by: Sunny

Girl to calculus teacher: I'm so confused.
Calculus teacher: Me too…

–St. Joseph Hill

Overheard by: Cat

Overweight geeky lunatic protester: The perpetual battery will last longer than any of us! The perpetual battery is the answer to all of our energy problems! It will draw its power from the very vacuum of space!

–Union Square South

Overheard by: Percival

Crazy old guy with beard and hat with lots of buttons: Where is the moon? Where is the moon, where is the galaxy? Have you ever seen Men in Black? It's all about the galaxy. The earth is beneath Columbus Circle. The moon is at 64th and Central Park West. If you had to suspend reality, how would you do it?

–Uptown 2 Train

Overheard by: Jingles

Professor: Has anybody ever seen a solar eclipse? Anybody, anybody? (silence) No? Well, maybe we were all inside on Facebook when it happened…

–St. John's University, Staten Island

Overheard by: Andrea

Visiting professor, explaining "word salad": Cream cheese to the moon mother, fuckers!

–Columbia University

Overheard by: Molly Moo

Obviously sober guy: I know Vikings eat ham, but what about Saturn?

–Rotating Cube Sculpture, Astor Place

Blonde: You cannot eat in space! It sucks you in.

–Union Square

Crazy bag man with hat full of buttons: Where's the moon, where's the moon? If the globe on Columbus Cirlce is the earth, the moon is on 63rd Street West. That is a test of spatial ree-al-uh-tee. How well did you do?

–Uptown 3 Train, Brooklyn

Overheard by: Les Izzmore

Guy holding baby: I’ve decided I’m going to write a pop-up history of the ancient world, based on Herodotus. Should be great for babies.

–Strand Bookstore

American history tutor: The only dictator I know of is Hugo Chavez, and that’s because I met him.

–Jake’s Saloon, 57th & 10th

Overheard by: poor kid’s gonna fail that test

Rich mom with two kids: … And it was named after our country’s first president, Christopher Columbus.

–117th & Broadway

Overheard by: doesn’t get columbus day off

Guy to friend: If I can make it through the ’80s, I can make it through anything.

–Astor Pl

Overheard by: squishduck

Professor: Sigismondo Malatesta was the only person in history to ever be publicly consigned to Hell by the pope. Now, that’s when a pope was a pope. I wish the pope would just get on TV and say, ‘You’re going to Hell!’

–Fordham University – Rose Hill

Overheard by: Christina

Guy: Wait, have I ever told you guys about my irrational fear of the late 1800s?

–NYU dorm

Overheard by: Danimal

Teacher #1: …and I smoked weed, so my friends staged an intervention. They said, “We reeeally want you to stop smoking.” And I was like, “All right, but you all have to try it once to see what it’s like.” Well, twice, not just once, ’cause you don’t get high the first time.
Teacher #2: You get high the first time!
Teacher #1: Not everybody does.
Teacher #2: So you made your friends smoke weed?
Teacher #1: I didn’t make them smoke. It was a choice.

–4 Train

Overheard by: Kaitlen

In a coffeeshop in Los Angeles (the Novel cafe in Santa Monica), a tutor is giving a beginning Spanish lesson to a student at the table next to me. The student is reading a newspaper article in Spanish, and then translating each sentence word by word:

Student: “I don’t know what this word, ‘decada’ means”
Teacher: “What do you think it means?”
Student: “I don’t know”
Teacher: “Guess.”
Student: “I really don’t know”
Teacher: “Here’s a hint. It’s very similar to an English word”
Student: “‘Decada’? Deca….. I have no idea”
Teacher: “It’s almost identical to the English word”
Student: “uhhhhh”
Teacher: “There’s only one letter difference”
Student: “deca….?”
Teacher: “C’mon, what do you think?”
Student: “I really have no idea”
(Teacher pinches her on the nose!)
Teacher: “It’s Decade!!!”
Student: “Ahhhhh!!!! Okay! I feel stupid!”

Man: 40 is the new 30; my teacher said that. She said 12 is the new 11. But she used to say 11 was the new 10.

–St. Mark’s Place

Professor: I have nothing against horse rapists, generally speaking.

–New School University

Overheard by: Evan Gilmer

Psychology professor: Chocolate may make you feel good, but cocaine will make you feel a lot better!

–Barnard College

Elderly history professor: I'm not sure of the consequences of what I'm saying, but I'm sure it's terribly important.

–Pratt Institute

Serious professor, on Freud: What's the matter, Anne, are you thinking about penis envy?

–Classroom, Hunter College

Overheard by: Rara

Bearded professor: He drew an eye on the bird and asked me "do you know what this means?" (short pause) "I swallow." What do you say to that?

–94th St & Broadway

Overheard by: DI

Elderly professor: You two ladies in the back want to cut the bullshit and listen to my brilliance?

–Tisch School of the Arts

Overheard by: Bruce Lee

You Get a Little Something Extra with a Wednesday One-Liner Education

Female student on cell: We don't know anything until we know something.

–Columbia University

Balding middle aged man guiding middle aged woman down stairs: Step, step, step, step. Flat, flat, flat, flat. Step…

–Columbia

Yoga instructor to skinny college girl: Turn your head to the left. Turn your head to the left. The left. The left. The left. Your other left. I know you go to Columbia.

–Bikram Yoga, Harlem

Overcaffinated Columbia freshman girl to another: What do you mean your sociology textbook ate King Lear?

–Carman Hall, Columbia University

Overheard by: that would make it difficult to finish either reading

Seven-year old boy to bookseller: Do you have any books on crop circles in this library?

–Barnes & Noble

Overheard by: Amused bookseller a few feet away

Man to another: Don't you know? All those tunnels in Afghanistan run into the pyramids in Gaza! If I was President there would be one less pyramid.

–Soup Kitchen, Midtown

Overheard by: John Gordon

Gentleman on train: You know why they invented daylight savings, don't you? It's because of Halloween, a lot of congressmen wanted kids to have an extra hour to go trick or treating. That's why we have daylight savings.

–Penn Station

Overheard by: Annie

Elderly professor: Fewer chairs, less chalk every week. It's a conspiracy!

–Pratt Institute

Overheard by: Denali